Lettuce pickers in Dan Errotabere’s field near Coalinga break for the day. With reduced water deliveries resulting from a statewide drought, Errotabere, like other Westlands farmers, has been forced to heavily tap groundwater to keep his crops growing.[/caption]

Irrigation pipes in the Westlands Water District, home to some of California’s largest farms. Growers in the area have seen their water supply cut in recent years, leading for calls to construct a new tunnel system to deliver more water from the California Delta.[/caption]

Electric pump housings at the C.W. Jones Pumping Plant, a federal facility which withdraws water from the California Delta and sends it into the Central Valley Project’s network of irrigation canals and reservoirs.[/caption]

Ronald Silva, Chief Engineer at the C.W. Jones Pumping Plant, walks through the facility near Byron. The federally operated Jones plant – along with the nearby Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant, operated by the California Department of Water Resources – mark the beginning of two of California’s great manmade rivers: the California Aqueduct and Delta-Mendota Canal.[/caption]

Maria Salcedo’s ten month old daughter, Ashley Alvarez, died from complications stemming from mutliple birth defects during a rash of such occurances in Kettleman City, a small farmworker town in the Central Valley.

Kettleman City resident Maria Salcedo’s ten-month-old daughter, Ashley Alvarez, died from complications stemming from multiple birth defects during a rash of such occurrences between 2007 and 2008 in this small farmworker town in the Central Valley. Contaminated drinking water is viewed as one of the potential causes.

The California Aqueduct flows south through the town of Kettleman City. The concrete river supplies water to farms, industry and tens of millions of residents in the Los Angeles Basin. Kettleman City’s residents, however, rely on contaminated groundwater wells in town for drinking and bathing.

Evilia Robles, inspects her drinking water at her home in Alpaugh. The small farmworker community in California’s Central Valley suffers from high levels of arsenic and other contaminates in its water.[/caption]

Juan Diego Hernandez, 9, bathes at his family’s home in Alpaugh. The small farmworker community in California’s Central Valley suffers from high levels of arsenic and other contaminates in its water.[/caption]

John Burchard, General Manager of the Alpaugh Community Services District, walks a ditch bank on the outskirts of town. The small farmworker community in California’s Central Valley suffers from high levels of arsenic and other contaminates in its drinking water.

Dropping water tables and a shorted pump resulted in Louis Coronado’s water well going dry. He said he was unable to contract a professional driller because they are busy drilling new wells for area farmers, so built this scaffolding and repaired the well himself.[/caption]